A Different Galaxy A Different Humanity
by yanzak
Summary: A century ago, humanity peacefully made first contact with the wider galaxy. Now, as a fledgeling Alliance tries to secure its place in the wider galaxy, a long lost branch of humanity sets its sights on the chaotic sprawl of the Terminus Systems.


A Different Galaxy. A Different Humanity. (Mass Effect Stellaris Crossover. AU)

Chapter 1

So, here we have it, a Stellaris Mass Effect crossover. Knowledge of Mass Effect is necessary, but I think I'll do a good enough job explaining the Stellaris elements that you don't need to have played the game to enjoy the story.

I wrote this partially because I thought it would be interesting, mostly because I wanted to try and a dress a few issues I've always had with the Mass Effect games and their worldbuilding. Mainly the way that the Batarian Hegemony is represented as a sort of cosmic punching bag, and the unreasonably quick progression of the Human Systems Alliance.

Well, enjoy.

/

Donnel Udina always looked forward to his Friday meal at _Athame's Bounty._ While the small restaurant could not offer the best dining experience on the Presidium, its prices were far more reasonable than its competition, and the staff were always friendly. They were all Asari, and were young enough, at least by the standards of a species that could live for a thousand years, that the excitement of seeing aliens every day hadn't worn off yet. He always found their enthusiasm refreshing after a week working at the embassy, dealing with people who were careful never to show what they were really thinking in case it undermined their position and made them look weak.

He was greeted by a young Asari with purple skin called T'melas. "Ah, mister Udina. Your table is prepared, and your companion as already arrived. If you will please follow me?"

It was only thanks to half a decade spent in the diplomatic service that he managed to keep the surprise and annoyance he felt off his face. It had been a long day, one mostly spent listening to the ranting of a representative from the Terra Firma voting bloc in the Alliance parliament, and he'd been looking forward to a chance to relax. For a moment, he considered just turning around and leaving as a lesson to whoever had intruded into his free time. Then common sense kicked in. Whoever was behind this must have had their reasons, and more importantly, the influence necessary to arrange it in the first place. It was only sensible to hear them out.

So, he smiled and followed his waiter while exchanging small talk. When he reached his table, he paused before sitting down, a questioning expression on his face. "I thought D'azea was going to be my server tonight, is she alright?"

The young Asari maiden paused in the process of drawing back his chair for him. "Yes sir, unfortunately, a personal issue came up that she had to attend to. She extends her apologies for the inconvenience."

"Of course, well tell her that it's no issue. These things happen in life."

He sat down and tucked his napkin into his collar before looking up at her and accepting a menu. "Thank you."

She nodded. "Would Sir prefer me to remain or…" she trailed off, glancing at the other person sitting at the table with him. It was not uncommon for the staff at _Athame's Bounty_ to serve as dinner companions and conversation partners for clientele, a role they excelled in. The missing D'azea, in particular, could talk for hours about history and Udina had spent many pleasant nights listening to her discussions on pre-spaceflight Asari societal norms. Sadly, it seemed that would not be possible tonight. He shook his head.

"As charming as I'm sure I would find your company, I wouldn't want my companion to feel jealous. I think we can manage by ourselves for a moment. The Asari maiden blushed slightly and retreated. He watched her until she disappeared from view around a corner. Only then did he turn to face his unexpected dining companion for the evening.

"Well Donnel, if you're finished charming the staff, perhaps we could get down to business?" asked matron Naedra T'sove, an amused expression on her face. Like all Asari, she might have been able to pass for human, if not for the blue skin and the lack of hair and ears. She was dressed in a long-sleeved red and white dress that ended just below her ankles and a set of silver earrings glinted in the light. She was beautiful and knew it. In his younger days, he had often found himself captivated by her presence. Now he knew enough about how the galaxy worked not to get complacent. None the less, he smiled at his friend.

"Worried about competition Naedra?" he asked playfully, making a point of looking over the menu for this evening.

The Asari scoffed and took a sip from the glass of wine that had already been poured for her. "Please, the Goddess knows I'm out of your league. But," she set her glass down with a 'clink', "I have heard that the staff are fond of you, the tall dark-haired human who enjoys listening to their stories rather than trying to impress them with obvious lies. Have you considered taking advantage of some of their, other _services?_"

Udina felt his cheeks heat slightly and took a sip of his wine to try and hide his embarrassment. Judging from the smirk on Naedra's face, he'd failed. Like most humans, he found Asari easy enough to deal with normally, thanks to their physical similarities to humans and many shared societal norms. But their casual attitude to sex never failed to make him awkward. "That would be improper. The oldest of them can't be more than what, 200? In a human that would be like me attempting to seduce a 17-year-old." Like with many Asari ran restaurants, it wasn't unusual for the staff to offer a more, _intimate,_ service for clients who they had taken a liking to. Donnel considered it a point in his favour that he had never made use of that particular service.

Naedra laughed and took another sip of wine. "You heart breaker. Those girls will be so disappointed."

He shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "Truthfully, I'm still holding out hope that you'll fall for my charms one of these days."

They two shared a look, then began to laugh. "Ah, that's why I like you Udina. By the Goddess, I wish some of the matriarchs I deal with were more like you. The way some of them act, you'd think the galaxy would stop if they ever cracked a smile. Stuck up old hags."

Naedra must have seen the discomfort in his eyes at speaking so dismissively of influential political figures because she gave a dismissive shrug, a human gesture that many Asari had adopted in the more than a century since First Contact. "Don't worry about it. They already know how I feel. If they weren't worried that a rival matriarch would fill my spot with one of their followers, then they would have packed me off to Thessia years ago."

That much was true enough conceded Udina. Nedra's position in the Asari Republics embassy didn't translate well into English, but essentially served as an apolitical line of communication for the matriarchs which ran Asari society. A crucial role, given that many of them were nearly a thousand years old, often with grudges and rivalries that went back centuries, it was sometimes difficult for them or their followers to deal with each other directly. Nedra served as a middleman, or woman in her case, allowing them to pass on information and do business without being seen to do so.

She'd been appointed to the position a century before he'd even been born. Udina had never asked, but he suspected that on some level her dislike of the matriarchs was at least partially due to disillusionment on her part. Many Asari regarded the matriarchs who guided their species with a level of respect that most human politicians could only dream of. It must have been disappointing to discover they were just as flawed as everyone else in the galaxy.

"Anyway, let's not talk about me. I heard the news about your promotion, senior aide to ambassador Anita Goyle herself. Congratulations, that's quite a step up."

Udina offered a smile and raised his glass in a mock toast, but some of the disquiet he'd been feeling all day must have shown on his face, despite his best efforts.

"What's wrong?"

Udina didn't try to deny it. Naedra had been reading people emotions since before first contact with humanity.

"It's just that, with all the new responsibilities, I won't be able to go back to Earth for the remembrance service." He sighed and drank more of the wine in a single go than proper dining etiquette said he should. The thought had been weighing down on him all day, ever since he had been informed of his promotion.

The asari gave him a sympathetic look. When the rest of the galaxy had discovered humanity, thanks to asari explores coming across the ancient space probe Voyager II, they had been shocked to learn that humanity's first extrasolar colonies had been established before their discovery of Element Zero by slower than light sleeper ships. They had been even more surprised, and then horrified, to discover that those ships were not humanity's first attempt at spreading past the boundaries of the Sol System.

The Ulysses initiative had been an attempt to establish extrasolar colonies by means of a wormhole, recently discovered in the Oort cloud at the edge of the Sol system. It had initially begun as a single ship program. But support from a captivated public had swelled the project to half a dozen ark ships, each containing a quarter-million volunteers held in hibernation sleep.

It had taken a decade for the ark ships to be constructed in the orbits of Earth and Mars. Meanwhile, the scientific community had done all they could to study the wormhole and unlock its secrets. Those experiments had culminated in a series of unmanned ships successfully jumping through the wormhole to Alpha Centauri, and then returning with their data banks packed with information. The data had not only given enough insight on the nature of the wormhole that it was judged safe for maned travel, but also identified two habitable worlds in the system.

After half a year burning to the edge of the system with their Epstein drives, the first of the ark ships had begun their jump sequence, and tragedy had struck.

In defiance of all scientific understanding, the wormhole had begun to destabilize moments before the jump sequence was complete. One ark ship was ripped in two by the unimaginable forces involved. The rest had simply disappeared. A stunned humanity had spent the next four years praying for a miracle and training their deep space sensors on the Alpha Centauri system, hoping for anything. A flash of light or a burst of radio chatter that crossed the lightyears to Earth, which might indicate at least one ships had survived.

Some held out hope longer than others, but after a decade with no sign of activity, it because clear to even the most optimistic that the worst had occurred. The fear of another such disaster had seen all research into faster than light technology suspended. When the first humans settled in Alpha Centauri, it was after a two-decade-long journey at sub-light speeds.

During first contact with the wider galaxy, the possibility of faster than light travel without relying on Element Zero had kicked off a wave of excitement. In fact, leveraging their experimental data had initially been one of the few bargaining tools the freshly formed Human Systems Alliance could use when negotiating with the Citadel Council. However, as the years passed and no new wormholes were discovered, interest had waned. Nowadays the only aliens who thought about the Ulysses initiative were a handful of theoretical physicists and screenwriters. The latter inevitably used the disappearance of the ark ships as a way to introduce a _lost tribe_ of mysterious humans, decedents of the colonists who had somehow survived and were now looking to make their mark on the galaxy. Privately, Udina wasn't sure what he found worse, the tastelessness of so many deaths being used as a plot device, or the quality of acting that was usually on display.

However, while the rest of the galaxy might look back at the Ulysses program with detached sadness, it was something most humans took seriously. On the 1st of January, humans throughout the galaxy stood in silence for six minutes, remembering the sacrifice of those who gave their lives for the dream of human expansion. On Earth and Mars, the ceremony was far more elaborate, with the names of each and every one of the honoured dead being read aloud in the land of their birth. As a junior aide, he'd always been able to get permission to visit Earth for the ceremony. Now his added responsibilities would make that impossible.

"I know how much it means to humans, but I'm afraid the galaxy won't stop to allow you to morn, and at least you can attend the ceremony at the embassy."

Udina needed. That was true enough. Most aliens, whether they found the Six Minutes Silence dignified or inconvenient, were smart enough not to try and exploit it, but there were always exceptions. Three decades after first contact, an Asari aircar manufacturer on Illium had sought to do just that, launching a hostile takeover of a human company that was eating into their market share, while their senior management was on Earth for the ceremony. They had succeeded and then declared bankruptcy six weeks later. An unending series of cyberattacks had all but shut down their production lines and human companies had withheld deliveries of raw materials, regardless of what their contracts demanded.

The resulting lawsuit had taken almost two decades to make its way through the courts, eventually ending with several human companies being ordered to pay compensation. In turn, the Alliance had compensated the human companies. Hardly the subtlest piece of diplomacy, but an effective statement all the same.

Udina leaned back into his chair again, looking down at the glass in his hands. "I had an ancestor on one of the ark ships, the Hyacinth, I think. Some great, something grandmother. There were no children on the ark ships, thank god. She had to leave her infant son behind on Earth. Without her, I wouldn't be here. I, I hope it was quick, whatever happened to her in the end." He spent a few moments just looking at the half-empty glass before sighing and setting it down on the table. He leaned forward, no longer having the patience for Naedra's games.

"Look, what's this about? As much as I enjoy your company, you didn't get yourself added to my table without me knowing just to exchange small talk."

Naedra nodded, suddenly all business. She reached into a pocket of her dress that was so well-tailored he hadn't noticed it until now. She produced a small data slate, entered a password and handed it over to him. Udina took it, noticing that it was a model with no extranet connection, and therefore no way for someone to remotely access it. That got his mind racing, whatever she wanted to discuss, Naedra clearly wanted it to stay between them.

"I've been asked by some of the Matriarchs to bring a matter to the attention of the Alliance government. Unofficially, of course. It seems the Deneb Accords may have had an unintended side effect."

Udina's eyes shot up from the data slate, his mouth set in a carefully neutral line and the memories of the Terra Firma representative he had spent most of the day dealing with flashing through his mind. Naedra must have seen the anger burning their because she waved off one of the staff who was approaching to take their order. It took Udina a few moments before he trusted himself to speak.

"As opposed to its intended side effect of rewarding the Batarian Hegemony for their hostility by assigning them two-thirds of the Skyllian Verge?"

Naedra met his eyes without difficulty, an unamused, almost bored look on her face. "I won't apologize. You and the Batarian Hegemony were about to come to blows over colonisation rites in the Skyllian Verge. As much as I respect humanity, we both know you couldn't have won that war. Their fleet outnumbers yours by five to one and has almost twenty times your tonnage. Any war would be an exercise in futility. The Deneb Accords guaranteed you a third of the Verge to settle and secured your nation's future with a demilitarized zone enforced by Turian peacekeepers."

Stopping himself from grinding his jaw, Udina poured himself another glass of wine. "We could have won, if we hadn't been standing alone." He commented, speaking so quietly that it was almost a whisper. "The labour of two generations, billions of credits and decades of planning. The Council threw it away with a single decree. Do you know the Hegemony still hasn't colonised even half the worlds assigned to them? Worlds that I might add, seem considerably richer in resources than the ones we were granted."

Naedra shook her head and sighed, like a teacher dealing with a particularly stubborn student. "I don't like the Hegemony, no one does. But they have performed their duty as the gatekeeper of the Terminus Systems for centuries. As chaotic as things there may be, it would be far worse if the average warlord didn't have to worry about a Hegemony strike force obliterating him if he rocks the boat too much. If the Council doesn't give them a fair deal, then they could make things very difficult for us. Who knows, perhaps in a few centuries' time humanity will be in a position to surpass them. Certainly, no one in Council Space would miss them if that were to happen."

Udina glanced at her. That was the problem with Asari. It was so easy for them to think in centuries when they lived for a thousand years.

"I would remind you that it was yourgatekeeper of the Terminus that began hostilities by sponsoring pirate and slaver raids on our frontier colonies."

"Allegedly. Besides the Alliance was the one who escalated the situation."

Udina managed to keep his anger under control by a visible effort. "We armed colonial militias with surplus military equipment! There's a difference between defending your territory and attacking someone else's."

Because he wanted something to do with his hands, Udina picked up the bottle of wine sitting in front of him and toped up his glass. Neither he nor Naedra missed the way his hand was shaking slightly with anger.

The attempt to colonise the Skyllian Verge had been an unmitigated disaster, probably the single worse reversal suffered by humanity since the Ulysses initiative. Not only had it been forced to abandon claims on several viable garden worlds, but they had also been forced to hand over five major colonies that fell into the newly agreed upon Batarian sphere of influence. Including the economically vibrant world of Elysium. That last point had stung all the more because of the fact that Elysium had been the target of one of the largest attacks by Hegemony backed slavers.

To make matters worse, the attempt to settle the Skyllian Verge had been directly funded and organised by the Alliance government. It would take decades to recoup the financial losses suffered. It might take centuries to restore the public's confidence. Terra Firma had almost tripled its presence in the Alliance parliament during the last elections. They had been raising merry hell ever since, demanding everything, from an unsustainably large military build-up, to a complete withdrawal of humanity from the wider galaxy, regardless of the economic catastrophe that would represent.

To make matters worse, he knew Naedra was correct. It was one thing for the Alliance military to supply colonial militias with instructors and equipment. It was quite another to take on the fourth most powerful military in the galaxy. While humanity had made leaps and bounds since first contact with the Asari, it was still estimated that the technological gap between the Alliance military and that of the Hegemony would take another century to close. Even if that gap hadn't existed, the fact remained that the Batarian military was an experienced and disciplined force, its officers and men blooded by centuries of brushfire wars in the Terminus Systems. The Alliance military, on the other hand, was painfully weak. Aside from a small core of volunteers that answered directly to the central government, most of its strength came from the planetary defence forces of member worlds, and those contingents tended to vary drastically in quality, depending on the wealth of the world that raised them. Earth and Mars could deploy squadrons of warships in space and divisions of mechanised troops on the ground. Other worlds could contribute a handful of system patrol covets and a few battalions of riflemen.

The idea that such a patchwork force could have been anything more than a speedbump to the juggernaut that was the Batarian military was laughable.

Once the Hegemony had declared that the Alliance was destabilizing the region with its military build-up and announced its intention to deploy its own military, the matter was settled.

Udina set the bottle down and tried to reign in his emotions. "We're not getting anywhere." He sighed. "What is this, unintended side effect?"

She gestured to the data slate. He started to search through it. It contained a collection of short video clips and low quality still images. Most of them were of the aftermath of battles but a few stuck out. He watched with morbid curiosity from a security camera as a dozen armed men went about casually loading cargo into the back of a hover truck, unconcerned by the bodies of dead workers lying at their feet. He swiped with his hand, and the clip was replaced with a striking image of a tank of some kind, firing its main gun at night. The muzzle flash had illuminated its frontal armour where a symbol of some kind had been painted, but the picture quality was so poor that he couldn't make it out.

He glanced up, a questioning expression on his face. This wasn't the first time either he or Naedra had been used by their superiors as a backchannel means of communications for their governments, but it was the first time she had done so on an issue he had absolutely no knowledge about.

"We've noticed an increase in the number of human mercenaries operating in the Terminus Systems. We believe they are mostly former members of the colonial militias that the Alliance trained. The matriarchs are getting nervous. The Terminus has been, if not peaceful, then at least predictable for their whole lives. They don't want that to change. Thousands of armed and trained men are only going to destabilise the situation."

Udina gave an unconcerned shrug. "This is a surprise to the matriarchs? A lot of these people fought for their worlds, lost friends and family to slaver raids, only to be told to pick up their lives and relocate. The Alliance might have offered to resettle them, but I can understand why some of them were so fed up with Council Space that they chose a different path. Especially if it gives them a chance to take shots at slavers and pirates."

Naedra frowned and crossed her arms, giving him a disapproving look. "The issue is that the whole point of the Deneb Accords was to ease tensions, not stir them up again. The Hegemony has a lot of interests in the Terminus Systems. They're not going to like the idea of thousands of humans, well-armed humans at that, operating in the region."

"Well, that just breaks my heart. Unfortunately for them, I don't see what they can do. There's nothing illegal about becoming a mercenary, a good thing too considering how many asari maidens spend a century or two in a merc group before settling down. As long as the Alliance continues to abide by the Accords, then there's nothing the Hegemony can do. Not with Turian peacekeepers holding the demilitarized zone between our territory."

Udina was surprised to see Naedra hesitate for a moment. Uncertainty was not something he associated with the six-hundred-year-old alien. "A lot of these groups are equipped with Urdeshi designs, especially their heavy equipment. If the Alliance government could lean on Urdesh, get them to limit their sale of weapons to these groups then…"

Udina shook his head and laughed, cutting off Naedra mid-sentence. Urdesh was one of the oldest human colonies, established by slower than light generation ships just two decades after the first such vessels arrived in Alpha Centauri. Thanks to a combination of skilful management, abundant natural resources and later on, the discovery of large deposits of Element Zero on its primary moon, Urdesh was one of the most important human worlds in the Alliance. Only Earth and Mars had a greater industrial output and Urdesh was responsible for almost a tenth of all human trade with the rest of the galaxy.

Unfortunately, the Urdeshi upper class, mostly owners of the vast factory complexes that the world was famous for, made no secret that they felt that both Earth and Mars were past their prime and longed for the day that Urdesh would eclipse them. They were also fiercely independent. When the discovery of Element Zero on Mars had, at last, made it possible for humanity's scattered colonies to be reconnected, Urdesh had been one of few colonies to seriously consider remaining independent of the newly formed Human Systems Alliance. In fact, it was only contact with the wider galaxy as a whole, and the hostile Batarian Hegemony to their galactic north in particular, that made them join the Alliance for protection.

As far as they were concerned, the Alliance was nothing more than a mutual defence treaty. The idea they would stop selling weaponry to mercenaries just because the Alliance government asked them was laughable. But he knew Naedra wouldn't settle for that.

"I can ask the Ambassador. Maybe she can talk with the Urdeshi representative in parliament, just don't hold your breath."

Naedra frowned, but Udina wasn't in the mood for any more arguing. He looked around and caught the eye of one of the staff who had been keeping a respectful distance during their conversation. He smiled and lifted his menu to signal he was ready to order. As she approached, he turned back to Naedra and smiled. "Honestly, I don't see the issue. How much trouble can a few mercenaries possibly cause?"

/

Lieutenant John Shepard glanced around the dimly lit troop bay of the Chimera armoured personnel carrier, at the men and women of 3rd platoon with their armour painted a garish mixture of blue and white. Despite the seriousness of the situation, a smile broke out beneath the faceplate of his helmet. Like many professional soldiers throughout history, Shepard and his men had a dim view of mercenaries in general. Even if you were willing to overlook the fact that they were liable to turn their coat if the enemy offered a handful of credits more than their employer. You still had the issue that men fighting for money would never be as willing to make sacrifices as someone who fought out of a sense of duty and loyalty to their country. The irony that this mission required them to pass themselves off as mercenaries themselves was not lost on him.

Then his thoughts turned to the mission itself, and his smile faded. There was a Scryer reconnaissance drone orbiting 3,000 meters above him, hidden from view by a combination of active camouflage systems and a coating of sensor baffling materiel. With a series of rapid eye movements, he linked its data feed to his helmet's heads up display.

Rouck's Rifles was not your average mercenary unit. In briefing reports supplied by Commonwealth Military Intelligence, it had been mentioned that they exclusively recruited Turians who had already completed their national service with the Turian Hierarchy. Those recruits then spent their first year on Sidonia Primaris, undergoing an intensive and occasionally lethal selection process to ensure they met the unit's standards. Only after that would they be allowed to join the Rifle's off-planet members on assignment.

That policy meant they didn't have the numbers of some of the big Terminus Systems mercenary organisations like the Blood Pact or Eclipse. However, it also meant that the least experienced members knew how to handle themselves in a firefight. Even more importantly, they had a level of discipline and organisation that few other merc groups could boast. If it wasn't for the fact that they would soon be trying to kill him, Shepard might actually have been impressed.

Like almost every other faction on Sidonia Priamris, the Rifles had not constructed their own base of operations. Instead, they had repurposed one of the abandoned Element Zero mines that dotted its surface. In their case, one that had belonged to the Asari cooperation Tritorn and co. Like all the rest, it had been hastily constructed a century ago when the mineral wealth of Sidonia Pramiris had been discovered. Only to be unceremoniously abandoned when its output had fallen to the point it was no longer profitable to maintain and protect a mining operation so deep in the volatile Terminus Systems.

However, just because it was no longer profitable enough to be worth the attention of Council Space-based mega-corporations, it was by no means worthless. The trickle of Element Zero that it could still produce was still worth fighting over. Given the strength of the defences he was seeing, it looked like the Rifles were more than willing to do just that.

The position was already naturally defensive. The mine itself had been built into the side of a hill, which rose a hundred meters above the surrounding plains. Not only did the defenders have a commanding view of the surrounding area, but they also had another advantage. Decades of industrial waste had covered what had once been lush grassland with ash and dust. Any attacking force would generate columns of dust that would reveal their presence long before they came face to face with the defenders.

Less professional units would have been content to throw up a few earthworks and call it a day, especially considering the less than pleasant conditions on the surface, but the Rifles were nothing if not professional.

A network of trenches ringed the sides of the hill, studded with bunkers seemingly constructed using materiel salvaged from abandoned buildings. Numerous tunnel entrances had been identified, connecting with the bulk of the underground facility. Using them, defenders from below would be able to quickly reinforce any point of the defences even in the fiercest of fighting. Combined with a dozen or so mortar pits that had been dug close to the summit of the hill, a naturally defensible position had become a formidable one.

True, a battalion of Commonwealth engineers with fabricators and labour droids might have been able to do better, but during his officer training on New Luna, it had been hammered into his skull never to underestimate the enemy. Throughout history, more battles had been lost because of that simple mistake than any other.

The Blue Suns attack force had moved into position during the night, using the cover of darkness and only after combat engineers had methodically blinded the more than competent sensor perimeter erected by the Rifles around their territory. Now a full platoon of mechanised infantry, four armoured personnel carriers with their embarked infantry and a battery of rocket artillery, were deployed in the spoil heaps that surrounded the mining facility. They were hidden as best they could be under Cameleoline netting and a coating of artfully applied dust.

Shepard glanced at his men. Like him, they were armoured from head to toe, making it impossible to see their faces. Even so, he didn't need to read their mind glow to know they were nervous. Some were trying to deal with the tension by running through their usual pre-battle rituals. Trooper Perday, a flamer operator, was obsessively checking her weapon, again and again, mumbling a prayer to one of the golds of Old Earth under her breath. Troopers Melique and Edwards were playing a game of cards on their omni-tools, trading good-natured insults and jokes as the game progressed. A couple of others were listening to music on their helmet speakers, their feet tapping out a tune that only they could hear. The rest were either checking their equipment, or, like Shepard, just sitting and waiting for the inevitable to happen.

They were not cowards. To even be considered for operation _Bolívar _required half a decade of exemplary service with a branch of the Commonwealth's armed services. Shepard would trust each of them with his life, but the experience that made them so effective also meant they knew what combat was like.

The upcoming battle would be a hard one. There was no doubt of that. Not only were they outnumbered almost three to one and facing an enemy in a strong defensive position, but the need to pose as simple mercenaries severely limited the range of equipment they had to choose from.

Instead of las rifles and plasma guns, they were armed with simple mass accelerator rifles. Rather than sprinting into battle wearing Atlas military exoskeletons, which offered similar protective capabilities to an armoured fighting vehicle, they were encased in simple suits of Carapace armour. The design had one been state-of-the-art, two centuries ago, during the initial desperate attempts by the survivors of the Ark Ship Chrysanthemum to carve out living space on the nightmarishly violent world they had found themselves trapped on.

To Shepard's pessimistic mind, even with the integrated targeting Auspex in the helmet and the backpack-mounted kinetic barrier generator, the suits still looked hopelessly outdated. No matter how many modifications the engineers had made, no matter how many simulations the high command had run, the undeniable fact was they were going into battle dangerously underequipped.

Shepard checked the time and keyed his communicator. Due to the need to maintain radio silence, his words were transmitted to the rest of the assault force by fibreoptic cables that had been flash fabricated by the engineer's omni-tools.

"All 3rd platoon elements. This is Raven Five. Operation commences in 120 seconds. Repeat, operation begins in 1-2-0 seconds. Remember, even if we are not wearing its uniform, we are still representatives of the Commonwealth of Man. Conduct yourselves with honour. Fight hard and fight well. Many are the dead."

Around him, he heard the low murmur as his troops echoed his final worlds. Conversations died down, men sat up straight and braced themselves for what was to come.

He triggered a countdown on his heads-up display. Each second seemed to take an eternity to pass. Then, just when the tension and become unbearable and the first light of dawn was on the horizon, the countdown ended.

_0:00. Zero hours. _

The armoured personnel carriers jerked forwards, breaking out of their start positions while columns of flame lit the dawn sky as the rocket artillery began to fire.

The battery of rocket artillery that had been assigned to support the attack consisted of a dozen _Assegai _launchers. Little more than crude metal frames mounted on a pair of road wheels, each fired six, 300mm unguided rockets that left behind streams of white exhaust that were deceptively beautiful to the uninitiated. The rockets themselves were nothing special, being similar in design to those which had been deployed on the battlefields of Old Earth during the 20th century. The only difference being that the fuel they burned was far more efficient. It was the warhead that made them the stuff of nightmares.

Instead of the usual filling of high explosive, each rocket was filled with a gel-like substance called Promethium. A development of Napalm, it was easy enough to manufacture with modified Omni-tools and horrifyingly effective. When the 72 rockets struck the south side of the hill, they created a scene from Hell. Trenches, bunkers and mortar pits were consumed by a sea of flame hot enough to melt body armour and ignite exposed skin ten meters from the blasts. The moment of the attack had been carefully chosen to coincide with a shift change, meaning double the number of Rifles were on the surface then there would normally be. The lucky ones were those close to the point of impact. They died instantaneously. It was the fate of those on the edge of the blast radius that horrified him.

He saw Turians running, screaming and flailing as their clothing ignited or flying sprays of Promethium struck them. They burned like humanoid candles; the effect somehow made worse by the dimness of the dawn, which served only to emphasis their brightness. He watched one Turian with his legs on fire, run screaming into the flames, though whether it was out of panic or a desire to end his suffering Shepard had no idea. He saw many others just shoot themselves. He couldn't blame them; he'd have done the same in their situation.

Desperate for a distraction, he focused on the aerial footage of the attackers themselves. During its initial operation, the mine's waste product had been gathered in spoil heaps that had started a few meters from its perimeter fence. At the time, there had been no concern of would-be attackers using them as concealment to assault the mine because a powerful corporate security fleet protected the system from attack. However, that fleet was gone, and the Rifles weren't so foolish as to leave such an obvious weakness in the defences of such a major main source of revenue. Over the years, slave labour had been used to clear away the spoil heaps from the mine perimeter, creating a flattened killing ground five kilometres deep.

If their engineers hadn't compromised the network of sensors scattered through the spoil heaps, the attackers would have emerged onto that open ground and into a hail of heavy weapons fire that might have broken the assault there and then. As it was, the defenders didn't notice what was about to happen until it was far too late.

The 3rd platoon of the Blue Suns formed up, four machines strong, and preceded to launch a textbook assault on a fortified position by an Armoured Fist formation.

The four APCs were Chimeras, a simplistic yet reliable design from the Alliance world of Urdesh that had stood the test of time so well that its latest models were still in production almost a century after its introduction. Three of them were armed with twin-linked antipersonnel mass accelerators that could shred infantry and even destroy light vehicles by contracting fire on weak point and simply hammering it apart. They surged forwards like hounds scenting blood, firing continuously.

The fourth machine carried Sheppard and his personal squad. As well as boasting an enhanced command and control systems, which in theory could allow its commander to coordinate the actions of a mechanised company or even a battalion with ease, it also served as fire support. The duel antipersonnel mass accelerators had been replaced with a long-barrelled, high-velocity autocannon that could shatter strong points and penetrate the armour of tanks. It advanced slower, hanging fifty meters behind the main force, both to not draw enemy fire and make it easier for the gunner to bring the autocannon to bear on high priority targets identified by Shepard and the commanders of the other Chimeras.

The four machines raced across the dust-covered plains, illuminated only by the muzzle flashes of their primary weapons.

Initially, confusion reigned amongst the defenders. Blue Suns engineers had deployed a trio of electronic noisemakers amongst the spoil heaps surrounding the mine. They now activated, filling the frequencies used by Rouck's Rifles with static and screaming voices. While the Blue Suns could communicate using laser communications systems, the Rifles were reduced to face to face communication. Below ground officers tried to marshal their forces and find out which sections of the defences were under attack. On the surface there was more than one case of friendly fire, as defenders from other sections of the trenches moved to repel the attack, only to be misidentified by other defenders as enemies who had somehow infiltrated their position.

Then someone in the trenches gathered their wits enough to launch a flair. The Chimeras of 3rd platoon were suddenly illuminated, charging forwards across the dust-covered surface for all to see.

The first weapons fire from the defenders was a desultory affair, a light spattering of small arms that pinged impotently of the frontal armour of the Chimeras. It didn't stay that way for long. The high standards and constant training the Rifles insisted on begun to pay off. Shock gave way to understanding which gave way to rage. First, one surviving bunker opened, then another. A minute after the attack began, it seemed to Shepard that the entire hillside was alive with muzzle flashes. For every shooter that the Chimeras silenced, another two emerged onto the surface and took up firing positions.

In the face of a hurricane of weapons fire, the Chimeras surged on. If it weren't for the reinforced armoured plating and high-performance kinetic barriers that the Blue Suns engineers had installed, they would have been nothing more than burning hulks within moments. As it was, they still took a pounding.

Shepard forced himself not to flinch as a burst of weapons fire struck the Chimera he was in, stitching a line of deafening bangs across the machines flank, before being abruptly cut off as the turret mounted autocannon opened fire, the recoil of the weapon rattling Shepard and his troops in their seats.

Suddenly, Shepard heard a voice, soft and echoing. It didn't come over his radio but seemed to speak to him from inside his own head.

"Lieutenant, we're close enough, request permission to begin strike." Shepard glanced over to the far end of the troop bay, where a quartet of armoured figures sat in their seats. To the naked eye, they seemed no different from the rest of the Chimera's passengers, but Shepard hadn't been limited to something as mundane as the human eye in years. Each one of them was at the centre of a maelstrom of psionic energy.

He swallowed, his mouth had suddenly gone dry. "Proceed." He said, before switching channels and broadcasting to the rest of the platoon. "Brace, Psi attack incoming!" Throughout the platoon, men clenched their jaws and uttered curses in the privacy of their own heads.

Shepard watched as the quartet of Gamma ranked Psionics, Spooks as the men called them, that had been attached to his command squad for the duration of the assault, straightened in their seats. The chaotic swirl of psionic energy that surrounded them grew even more violent, to the point it hurt his eyes to look at it. His HUD beeped a warning, the temperature inside the armoured personnel carrier was plummeting, he watched, awestruck, as frost began to form on the armour of the men surrounding him.

There came a moment that seemed to last longer than it should have, then the psionic attack was unleashed.

The attack wasn't aimed at Shepard and his men, but every one of them had some level of psionic potential. Despite their best efforts to raise mental defences, they still suffered. Shepard, a Delta class psionic, suffered worse than most.

_In an instant, the interior of the APC disappeared around Shepard, replaced with an endless darkness that seemed to stretch to the horizon with no end and no beginning. He was not alone. Somehow, he knew there was something in there with him, something terrible._

_His legs began to move against his will, turning him to face whatever was standing behind him. He saw what it was. He opened his mouth to scream. _

Shepard jerked back to reality. The interior of the Chimera was a broiling mess of psionic energy. Shepard shook his head, the memories of what he had seen mercifully beginning to fade away. His men were handling the aftereffects as well as he could expect. Some were shaking their heads, others were muttering prayers and a few, like Trooper Perday, were unnaturally still, their hands clasped around their weapons as tightly as their gene modded muscles could allow.

However unpleasant the experience had been for his men; the defenders had suffered far worse. Some were dead, killed outright by the force of the psionic attack. Others were turning their guns on each other; lost in a nightmare they couldn't wake from. A few simply shot themselves. Even though he had read the briefing material and knew the kind of people they were, Shepard couldn't help but pity them. A surprise attack was one thing, a surprise attack by psionics against those without the training or equipment necessary to cope with it was simply slaughter. The Commonwealth of Man had learned that the hard way a long time ago.

A voice broke through the communications channel. It was corporal Bogoris, the commander of the Chimera Shepard was travelling in. "Heads up lieutenant, five hundred meters from disembarkation point."

Shepard nodded absentmindedly and then transmitted an order to the entire attack force. "Prepare to disembark, remember the assault plan. 1st squad takes the left flank, 2nd the right and 3rd the centre. Command squad is the reserve."

The men and women of 3rd platoon began to focus, the flood of adrenalin helping them push past the aftereffects of the psionic attack. Shepard heard the smoke launchers mounted on the side of the Chimera's turret firing, throwing out a dozen canisters to provide concealment for the disembarking infantry.

The Chimeras skidded to a halt just short of the razor wire that the Rifles had erected in front of their forward trenches. Weapons blazing, they lowered their rear loading ramps, and the 3rd platoon surged down them. Their blood was up, both from the fury of the assault and the residual trauma of the psionic attack. Now that they were offered the chance to kill something, to distract themselves from the horror they had witnessed in their own minds, they seized it enthusiastically.

"Into the bastards, for the regiment!" bellowed Shepard, as he followed his men into the enemy trenches.

/

Shepard heard the footsteps stop behind him but didn't turn around. He was leaning with his shoulder against the side of an abandoned bunker, gazing out to the east where the empty rolling plains stretched to the horizon. There a slight wind that was kicking up dust delves and that danced around each other in a way that after the chaos of the nights fighting, he found quite calming. Then the wind changed, and a cloud of smoke from a burned-out bunker enveloped him. He sighed and turned around.

The targeting Auspex built into his helmet outlined the form of Sargent Price, the assistant squad leader of the command squad and the second in command of 3rd platoon. As ever, the man's mind glow was infuriatingly calm, as though he had just returned from a pleasant stroll, rather than scouring the mining tunnels and underground living spaces for those members of the Rifles who had refused to surrender.

The wind changed again, and Shepard got a clear look at Price for the first time. The man's armour was pitted and scarred from weapon strikes, the blue and white paint job that had been applied before the battel was almost completely obscured by carbon scoring from an explosion. Despite all that, he stood at attention as calmly as if he was on the parade ground.

"Well, you've been busy." Said Shepard, returning the man's salute and gesturing for him to stand at ease.

The Sargent glanced down at his blackened armour plating, as though seeing it for the first time. "Oh, this. We managed to persuade most of the holdouts to surrender, but the senior officers refused. It seems they were under the impression we were going to kill them either way. The Spooks tried to get inside their heads, but one of them panicked and triggered the charges. Bloody stupid Xenos." He added as an afterthought. As though being almost cooked alive by an explosion in a mining tunnel was just a minor annoyance.

Shepard sighed. As pointless as the deaths had been, he could understand the reasoning behind it. There was no law in the Terminus Systems, except what could be enforced by the barrel of a gun. The Blue Suns' offer of surrender was genuine, but it could just have easily been a trick to lure the defenders out and massacre them or enslave them and put them to work in their own mines, which reminded him.

"The slaves?" When the corporations had pulled out, they had taken every piece of mining equipment with them. Like every other mine on Sidonia Priamaris, the Tritorn and co facility had been operated by slave labour. Liberating them had been one of the main objectives of the attack.

"307 accounted for, we're sweeping the tunnels again and checking the records kept by the Rifles, but the Spooks don't think there are any more. We were lucky. It didn't seem to have occurred to the Rifles to try and use them as hostages until it was too late."

_Probably because most organisations in the Terminus Systems wouldn't hesitate to kill the slaves if it meant finishing off the Rifles._ Thought Shepard disgustedly.

"Sir," began sergeant Price before trailing off, a note of uncertainty in his voice that Shepard usually didn't associate with the veteran. "We, we found a secondary group of slaves who were being used for, for, ah, it's easier to show you."

Shepard felt a slight psionic probe at the edge of his mental defences, shrugging, he lowered his barriers and let the sergeant project the images directly into his mind.

"Oh, I see. _Entertainment."_ Shepard ground out through clenched teeth as the images started to fade.

"I've got men I trust guarding the captured mercenaries, but some of the lads are wondering if…"

"As tempting as the thought of putting those animals down is, we have our orders. Don't worry Sargent. They'll get what's coming to them in due time. Our allies have assured us of that, only after a fair trial so no one can say we sunk to their level."

Judging from his mind glow, Price wasn't happy at the delay, but he was also too much of a professional to go against his orders. "Very good sir."

"The slaves?"

"We're treating them as best we can. Some of them are extremely malnourished, and most of them have some level of lung damage. They're nervous. We've told them that we're not going to hurt them, but they're scared. They think we're just another group of merc scum." Shepard was sure he heard a note of indignation slip into the sergeant's voice. The veteran might not like working with xenos, but the implication that he was comparable to the mercenaries they had fought seemed to be far more offensive.

"Do what you can for them, try and keep them calm. They won't be our problem for much longer."

The sergeant nodded, saluted and left.

Shepard checked the time and sighed. He made his way over to his Chimera, passing troopers who were engaged in various post-battle activities. Policing enemy dead and searching them for useful equipment, putting out the few fires that were still burning and performing maintenance. He passed lance corporal Donervan who was commanding his fireteam with his usual efficiency, seemingly unconcerned by the fact that his left arm ended in a stump below the shoulder. A lucky shot of autocannon fire from one of the bunkers set further up the hill had blasted everything below that point away during the final push up the hill.

"Bad luck," commented Shepard as he passed.

"Augh its nothing. Just wish they'd taken the other one instead, then I could get a matching set. Still, the cog boys say they can get me a new prosthetic by tomorrow."

"At least it gives you an excuse not to do your own maintenance for a while."

The corporal laughed, "shame on you sir, who doesn't find the idea of field stripping their rifle to be the hight of excitement? I see you slacking off there Perkins! Put you back into it, that collapsed dugout isn't going to excavate itself."

The luckless Perkins sighed, muttered something about it being a shame the xenos gunner hadn't stopped at taking the man's arm and got back to work. As he drove his shovel into the earth, the air around him glowed a faint blue as he used his psionics to loosen the soil. "Why the hell can't we get a labour droid in for this? I signed up to fight, not sling dirt."

"That sounded like volunteering for latrine duty to me, what do you think lieutenant?"

Shepard laughed and waved the matter off. "Your fireteam, your decision. Bad luck Perkins."

He walked on, hearing the luckless Perkins bemoaning his fate behind him, while his squad mates jeered him good-naturedly.

A few minutes later, he clambered into his Chimera. He shut the ramp behind him and placed a holographic projector on the floor of the crew compartment. The communications systems built into his helmet linked with those of the Chimera. A couple of minutes later, he received a communications request and accepted it.

/

Captain Anderson, commanding officer of the Blue Suns 1st company, stood in his command variant Chimera APC and surveyed the holographic projections of the assembled officers. Three of them were human, the commanders of the Blue Suns platoons operating on Sidonia Primaris. Edwards, Ramirez and Shepard. He didn't pay them much attention. He knew what they were capable of and he'd already read their after-action reports. They had taken their objectives with minimal resistance, the combination of psionic attacks and brute force that characterised the Commonwealth military having been too much for the mercenaries and slavers they faced to handle. Despite their unhappiness at their limited arsenal, he knew he could rely on them to get the job done.

It was the other three officers that he wasn't so confident about.

They were xenos, wearing combat armour that had been painted a mixture of green and black. The flag of the League of Independent Systems was displayed proudly on their shoulder pads. A Turian, a Salarian and an Asari. It was like the beginning of a bad joke. He suppressed a smile at the thought of what his father would have said if he could see him now. The cankerous old bastard would probably burst a blood vessel.

"Congratulations are in order. All objectives have been taken, and with minimal casualties. Sidonia Primaris now belongs to the league. Please, pass my compliments on to your men."

The speech was mostly intended for the xenos. All of them had some combat experience, but it was mostly in colonial militias that were little better than armed mobs. The fighting of the last day had been the first test of the League of Independent Systems newly trained military in combat. Judging from the reports he had read; they had managed to hold things together reasonably well. True, they had suffered heavier losses than the Blue Suns, but that was to be expected. Not only did their troops not enjoy the advantage of gene mods and cybernetic enhancements that were standard amongst Commonwealth soldiers, but operational security also prevented them from receiving psionic support.

An alert popped up in the display of his augmetic eyes, and he smiled.

"look sharp. There's someone very important who would like to meet you."

A projection of Dilonia Nemecus, the newly elected prime minister of the League of Independent Systems appeared. The assembled officers snapped to attention, the humans out of a sense of professionalism, the xenos out of genuine respect.

The female Turian clasped her hands together in front of her. "I have been briefed by my advisors on your successes on the battlefield. On behalf of myself, the citizens of the League and all those who suffer throughout the Terminus Systems, I wish to thank you. With a single stroke, you have not only freed thousands from slavery and secured the league access to a source of Element Zero, but you have also sent a message. A message that will resound through the Terminus Systems. No more will the weak be preyed upon by the powerful. No more will we turn a blind eye to the suffering of our fellows. This is the beginning of a new age, one of order and reason. I can't promise that our path will be easy, but I can promise you this. I shall stand by you, every step of the way until we are victorious. Until the day comes when no child lives in fear of the collar or the lash!"

Overall, it wasn't the worst speech he'd ever heard from a political, thought Anderson, as first the xenos and then human officers began to applaud.

/

Well, that was a torture to write. I wanted to include another segment to this chapter, but I started writing this back in _September_. If I didn't get something out now, then I was going to go insane.

So, on to the story itself.

As I mentioned in the beginning, one of the points of this story is to address issues I have with the Mass Effect world building. So, let's look at them.

1st off, the Batarian Hegemony will be portrayed in this story as I feel they should have been in game, as the fourth most powerful nation state in the galaxy with a strong military and a powerful industry. (albeit one maintained by unethical practices.)

Humanity surpassing it is the premise for a good story. The cannon timeline where the Alliance basically cripples its economy and military, reducing it to a paper tiger in less than a century is ridiculous.

The closest real-world comparison I can think of is the defeat of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905. But as bad as that war was for the Russians, they were still strong enough to fight for three years during the 1st world war against the might of the central powers. The point I'm trying to make is that a nation as old and established as the Hegemony shouldn't just of like a house of cards at the first blow.

In this version the Hegemony is a powerful force that is noticeable stronger than the Alliance, as it should have been in cannon.

This brings us onto the reason for the Citadel Council siding with the Hegemony over the colonisation of the Verge. The Hegemony is an unwelcome but necessary part of galactic politics. If the Council doesn't cut it some slack then it could make things very hard for them, especially given its ties to pirate and slaver organisations in the Terminus Systems.

The other major issues is the nature of the Alliance in this timeline. In cannon, it became the representative of humanity on the galactic stage by taking decisive action during the First Contact War, spearheading the counterattack at Shanxi. Impressing the Citadel Council in the process by proving that humanity had the potential to be a capable military force.

In this timeline, that didn't happen. First contact was peaceful. That means that not only is humanity an unknown force when it came to military capabilities, there was no real incentive to build up the Alliance military. In fact, the Alliance government doesn't have the authority to maintain a strong central force, because until the hostilities with the Hegemony, there was no need for it.

2nd even with the Alliance having access to the wider galaxy, it makes sense that it won't immediately jump its economy and tech base to the standards of the wider galaxy straight away. The Alliance is competing against governments and corporations that have been playing this game for longer than humanity has had access to the wheel. It makes sense that humanity is the minor player in this galaxy.

So, moving on to a few other general points.

Yes, this is another story by me featuring the Commonwealth of Man from Stellaris, frankly because I find them more interesting than the other human faction, the United Nations of Earth. (Although, having said that, the idea of dropping the UNE into a setting like 40k and watching them try to keep their morality in the face of overwhelming opposition is an interesting one.)

So, a few questions that I suppose might come up.

1st off. "Isn't the Commonwealth of Man the Imperium of Man with the serial numbers filled off?"

You can play them as that, but frankly I think that the Commonwealth of Man is much more interesting if you let them be defined by the term, Realpolitik. See, the IOM can act the way it does because it is the single most powerful entity in the galaxy.

The CoM on the other hand started out from a single colony ship that was almost wiped out by the local wildlife. They can't afford to be a parody of humanity fuck year because if they did, they would end up as nothing more than a speedbump in the history of another civilisation.

The CoM characters we see in the story might not love working with aliens, or, xenos as they call them, but they can do it and have standards for how soldiers should act. Think how Imperial characters act in stories like, The Mission Stays the Same or For Those We Cherish. They might not think like us, but they aren't bad people.

There is a very real reason for the CoM to be the way it is, and they've been expanding their civilisation beyond Unity for over a century. They've hade time to sand some of the rougher edges off when it comes to dealing with the species they encounter.

It simply makes more sense for them to try and sponsor a friendly power in the Terminus Systems than to try and subdue it by themselves, something that despite their tech advantage might not be possible if the other galactic powers got wind of what was happening and intervened.

No, the CoM isn't aware of the Reapers. I think it gives me more options, of course that doesn't mean they haven't found other things out there in the darkness.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I think I'll leave it there. Any questions feel free to ask.


End file.
